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{%type%} Definitions

WordNet 3.0Copyright Princeton University
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adj. - Characteristic of a recurrence in an organism of features of remote ancestors rather than parents.

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Usage examples (35)
  • She has an atavistic fear of the dark.
  • Members of the audience actually gasped when Hayek referred to Socialism as 'atavistic' - the reversion to an older, more primitive form.
  • Maybe they're just being atavistic, which is generally part of the successful business person's act anyway.
  • Well, admittedly I had to look up "atavistic" and it means a "throwback", or old fashioned.
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The Open Dictionary of English is a collaborative project, based on Open Source materials, LearnThat resources, and partner APIs.
We give special thanks to our LearnThat volunteers, as well as Princeton University and Wiktionary for their Open Source word data. We're also grateful for the support given by Google, Wordnik.com, Dictionary.com, Stands4.com and YouTube, OEDILF.com, Kylescholz.com, Best-Practice.com, Forvo.com, as well as the generous Creative Commons community.